Ehrlich Calls for End to Death Penalty Halt - Guilt Not a Question, GOP Hopeful Says

By Daniel LeDuc

 June 2, 2002

OCEAN CITY, June 1 -- Republican gubernatorial candidate Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. today called for an end to the recently imposed moratorium on capital punishment in Maryland, saying there was no question that the man next due for execution was guilty.

 In the first major policy address of his campaign, Ehrlich said that as governor he would continue the practice of reviewing each death penalty case brought before him for fairness and ensuring that all evidence had been considered. But he said that Gov. Parris N. Glendening's decision May 9 to temporarily suspend executions was wrong because it was unfair to victims.

 An end to the death penalty moratorium was part of a five-point anti-crime proposal that Ehrlich outlined to Maryland Republicans meeting here for their spring convention. The four-term member of Congress from Baltimore County is the leading candidate for the GOP nomination and the clear favorite of the more than 200 Republicans at the convention.

 He said he also would seek to target criminals who use guns in their crimes, establish new training for police crime laboratory technicians, expand DNA testing and spend more to treat incarcerated drug addicts.

 Ehrlich, a lawyer who boasted of his service as a member of the Maryland House Judiciary Committee and as a sponsor of many legislative proposals favored by prosecutors, provided few details for his plan during the speech or after in a meeting with reporters. On drug treatment, he could not say how much more he would spend.

 Glendening had long followed Ehrlich's position on the death penalty: No moratorium was necessary while a state-sponsored University of Maryland study of the fairness of its application was underway, because the governor reviewed each case before allowing an execution to go forward.

 But three weeks ago, Glendening reversed himself and imposed a moratorium, just days before Wesley Eugene Baker, 44, was scheduled to die for murdering a woman in front of her grandchildren during a 1991 purse-snatching. Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the frontrunner for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, had urged the governor to temporarily halt the executions.

 Unlike Illinois Gov. George Ryan (R), who declared a moratorium two years ago after several death row inmates were exonerated and freed, Glendening said he was not motivated by issues of innocence but about fairness in a process that disproportionately selects blacks for execution. Nine of the 13 men on Maryland's death row are black.

 In Maryland, guilt is not an issue, Ehrlich said. He called Glendening's decision cynical and said nobody talks about the victim.

 He had previously condemned Glendening's decision as politically motivated to help Townsend with black voters in the governor's race.

 In calling for expanded DNA testing, Ehrlich said that also might resonate with black voters. He said he hoped it would help give credibility to the legal system, which many African Americans believe targets them unjustly.

 Additional DNA testing would not only help establish the guilt of some suspects but clear others. That should be just as important as catching criminals, he said.

 This year, the General Assembly voted to require anyone convicted of a felony to give a DNA sample but stopped short of providing the $1.5 million in funding for maintaining the expanded database.

 Ehrlich said that uniform training of the crime lab technicians in state, county and local police departments could be accomplished through a new academy. He said that the U.S. Justice Department offers $30 million in grants to states that have such training standards and that Maryland is not getting any of the money.

 He also called for creation of Project Exile in Maryland. The project, which is favored by the National Rifle Association as well as some gun control advocates, has been used extensively in Virginia. It targets criminals who use guns in crimes and felons who illegally possess firearms.

 The project allows federal prosecutors to work with state authorities so that those convicted of gun crimes can face harsher federal sanctions, and it employs an extensive, privately funded media campaign.

 But Maryland U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio -- whom Ehrlich recommended for appointment by President Bush -- has said he would concentrate more on major drug rings and white-collar crime rather than street crimes and has not been an outspoken advocate of Project Exile.